Official time is time spent by Federal employees performing representational work for a bargaining unit in lieu of their regularly assigned work.

Unlike the private sector, where companies or unions pay union representatives to conduct “union business,” our system of government unions allows union representatives who happen to be federal employees time away from their normal duties in order to conduct union business–all at taxpayer expense.

According to a report prepared by the Office of Personnel Management, the amount of time spent by federal workers to conduct union business has increased nearly 600,000 hours since 2007.

The Examiner’s Sean Higgins made note that, in FY 2011 (the last year recorded in the OPM report), federal government workers spent nearly 3.4 million hours performing union activities while on the job.

Since the average federal employee made over $108,000 in both salary and benefits (in 2008), or $52.15 per hour, the costs to taxpayers in FY 2011 was over $177 million for federal government workers to conduct union business. [Again, that figure is using the 2008 average compensation cost (wages and benefits) for federal government workers.]

“In many cases, ‘official time’ is no more than taxpayer-funded no-show jobs.” stated the National Right to Work Committee’s on its website.

The NRTWC also notes that Obama’s union-controlled National Labor Relations Board spent more than three-quarters of a million in taxpayer money to pay for “official time”:

In the OPM Report, you can see how much federal agencies are paying for union officials to work for unions. For example, the supposedly impartial National Labor Relations Board spent $768,465.14 for union officials to work for their union not for the NLRB. [Emphasis added]

Unfortunately, now that Obama has won re-election, without the accountability of a second election looming, the well is open to all those who wish to drink from the slush fund that is the taxpayers’ pockets.